In December, we wrote about the unbelievably stupid arrest of Rokudenashiko (nee Megumi Igarashi), a Japanese manga artist who makes art with castings of her genitals. She’s actually been arrested twice – once for distributing 3-D printable data of her vagina (really, her vulva or pudendum, for the pudants reading this), and another time for for an art display of whimsical sculptures (described by prosecutors as “obscene objects”) at a store in Tokyo. Examples of the obscene objects are shown above and below:
Rokudenashiko’s been in jail awaiting trial, after a judge refused her lawyer’s request to release her. Judge Noriki Ando said Rokudenashiko must remain in prison out of a “fear she may destroy evidence or flee.”
Rokudenashiko’s trial is now underway. Her lawyers will defend the artist by claiming that her “work is not a precise reproduction of the vulva and does not cause sexual arousal.”
The Guardian points out the hypocrisy of the case against Rokudenashiko:
Her case has attracted worldwide attention and criticism of the apparent double standards in the Japanese law’s treatment of sexual imagery. While the country has a thriving pornography industry, its obscenity laws ban the depiction of genitalia, which usually appear pixelated in images and videos.
Commentators pointed out the hypocrisy of her initial arrest, which came soon after Japanese authorities resisted pressure to ban pornographic images of children in manga comics and animated films.
If found guilty Rokudenashiko could spend two years in prison for distributing obscene objects.
Here’s a profile of Rokudenashiko, showing how she makes her “vagina sculptures.”
And here she describes her (successful) crowdfunded plan to make a “pussy kayak”: